Charles Haddon Spurgeon was born at Kelvedon, Essex, England on June 19, 1834. The son of an Independent minister, he enjoyed fair educational privileges, but was disappointed in receiving a collegiate training. Near the close of 1850, when at home for a holiday, he was converted in the Colchester Primitive Methodist Chapel, under the preaching of an unknown minister, who chose for his text Isa. 45:22, "Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth...." He was immersed at Isleham, May 3, 1851 and from this time actively engaged in Christian work.

The following year he preached his first sermon from I Pet. 2:7 at Teversham, near Cambridge. In 1852 he became pastor at Waterbeach, and during his ministry of two years in this place the membership increased from forty to nearly a hundred. An address which he made at the Cambridge Union of Sunday Schools in 1853 led to his recommendation as a candidate for the then vacant Baptist Church of New Park Street, Southwark, London. This once prosperous church had so dwindled that only one hundred persons attended Spurgeon's first service. He accepted the pastorate in April 1854, and within a year found it necessary to enlarge the building. While the alternatives were being made he preached in Exeter Hall. But the enlarged building could not hold the crowds that desired to hear the youthful preacher, and in 1856 he preached at the Royal Surrey Gardens Music Hall, which seated seven thousand persons.

The new Metropolitan Tabernacle was opened for service Mar. 25, 1861. The building which seated five thousand people was filled to overflowing every Lord's Day, morning and night. The Tabernacle pulpit gained world-wide fame, so that the name of Spurgeon became familiar in the Christian homes of every land.

In addition to the work of his Church, Spurgeon founded the Pastors College and the Stockwell Orphanage. The great preacher's pen was as busy as his voice. More than two thousand of  his sermons were published and many of them translated into some thirty languages. "The total number of Spurgeon's sermons issued in print during half a century must have been between two and three hundred millions." (Dallimore).

Among his more important works are "Morning by Morning," "Evening by Evening," "The Treasury of David" (an exposition of the Psalms) and "Lectures to My Students." From 1865 Spurgeon edited "The Sword and Trowel" magazine.

He suffered frequently from attacks of illness after 1867, but with the aid of his brother, Rev. James A. Spurgeon and an efficient corps of assistants, he carried on the work of his church with remarkable efficiency. He was a good friend of D.L. Moody and Hudson Taylor. He supported scores of branch Churches at home and more missionaries abroad.

Between 1887-89 Spurgeon was involved in what has been called the "Downgrade Controversy." Liberalism had crepted into the Baptist Union following the publication of Darwin's Origin of Species and the acceptance in certain circles of Higher Criticism. When Spurgeon's effort at stemming the tide of unbelief failed he withdrew from the Union. His stand for an infallible and inerrant Bible and separation from modernism was a pattern set for those who should follow in his ministry - to contend earnestly for the faith.

On June 7, 1891 Spurgeon stood before his people for the last time.  That platform had been his "pulpit throne from which he had proclaimed the Gospel to at least twenty-million hearers," but now the great congregation was to hear him no more. The Lord took him on Jan. 31, 1892 after a most fruitful life of forty years of service.